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2018 Houston Astros Season Thread

Planet Houston

By Planet Houston
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TexArcher
TexArcher

Bregs is going Crawford Boxes right here.

ERhine
ERhine

Prior to the footage being edited by Bender:

wesleywest
wesleywest

Two Diamond Club tickets available for the Sunday night game.  Free.  Need to pick them up from me in 77027. Rules: Poster must be a big contributor to this thread/last years shag thread.  No gue

Gourmand

Gourmand 7778

Posted
Posted
37 minutes ago, WBT said:

I think we're only going to carry 12 pitchers, like last year.  I think you can add McHugh as another lock.  Then it will be LMJ if healthy, and either Peacock or Harris for the last spot or both if LMJ can't go.  I see no chance that they would roster Valdez or James.

Actually, last year we only carried 11 pitchers in the 1st round and then 12 for the longer series.

Ahh I'm an idiot, I miscounted my own back-of-the-envelope list. Yes, I expect 13 position players and only 12 pitchers. So that squeezes my quick list even tighter. Only TWO spots left, to choose from those guys.  I don''t think McHugh is a lock considering how he's pitched lately. Man, some good arms are going to get left out.

 

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Planet Houston

Planet Houston 4950

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22 minutes ago, FondrenRoad said:

Valdez is filthy when he is on his game though. Keep him on a short leash, and he will be a great reliever. 

I don't trust his control enough to come out of the pen with the bases jammed and needing a final out in the 7th during a playoff game.

I heard some chatter on sports radio debating whether Framber or Sipp would make the playoff roster, and I thought it was a pretty stupid argument the way Sipp has performed this season.

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Seasick Sailor

Seasick Sailor 3747

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3 minutes ago, Planet Houston said:

I don't trust his control enough to come out of the pen with the bases jammed and needing a final out in the 7th during a playoff game.

I heard some chatter on sports radio debating whether Framber or Sipp would make the playoff roster, and I thought it was a pretty stupid argument the way Sipp has performed this season.

Give me Sipp all day. He's earned it. (File that under sentences I never thought I would write back on opening day.)

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kevwun

kevwun 16438

Posted
Posted (edited)
8 minutes ago, Gourmand said:

Ahh I'm an idiot, I miscounted my own back-of-the-envelope list. Yes, I expect 13 position players and only 12 pitchers. So that squeezes my quick list even tighter. Only TWO spots left, to choose from those guys.  I don''t think McHugh is a lock considering how he's pitched lately. Man, some good arms are going to get left out.

 

That does change things.  James and Valdez aren't making it if there are only 2 spots left.

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Gourmand

Gourmand 7778

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Just now, kevwun said:

That does change things.  James and Valdez aren't making it for sure if there are only 2 spots left.

"He had a couple of walks and didn't cave and that's consistently what he's done," Astros manager AJ Hinch said. "If he's gotten into trouble, he has not conceded the inning. There's no panic in him. That pays dividends moving forward when we're starting to make decisions. Of course he's factoring in."

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Guadaloopy

Guadaloopy 11129

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I’m not sure how someone could have watched both Josh James and Framber Valdez pitch over the last couple of weeks and come away with a preference for Valdez on the playoff roster.  Framber has been good to great.  Josh has been great to dominant.    The ONLY reason to take Valdez over James at this point is the desire for another solid lefty in the pen.   

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henrygandorf

henrygandorf 29225

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assuming both as bullpen pieces, i think you have to go james.  if you want to say their stuff is about equal, james has shown better command than framber.  and when you're coming in to start an inning or two, or coming into a jam, you don't have time to find it.  you need to flood the strike zone with 99+ and see what happens.

i do like that there won't be much of a book with either.

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UTexasFight

UTexasFight 9817

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Kaplan Q&A with Brownie:

Good read. Was at the last regular season in the Dome. Still has to be my favorite regular season game

For many in Houston, Bill Brown’s voice is synonymous with Astros baseball. His tenure as the team’s television play-by-play broadcaster began in 1987 and didn’t end until 2016, when two years ago Saturday he announced his retirement.

Yet Brown, who will turn 71 on Thursday, remains a consistent presence around Minute Maid Park. He still works for the Astros as a community outreach executive and has occasionally filled in during the last two seasons on TV broadcasts for Todd Kalas and on radio for Robert Ford or Steve Sparks.

As his second season in his new role winds down, Brown spoke to The Athletic about his post-broadcasting career, his foray into photography and his most memorable calls from three decades of Astros games.

(This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.)

You’re just about exactly two years removed when the Astros announced you were retiring, but you’re at Minute Maid Park so often I think everyone is skeptical you actually retired. After such a long career in broadcasting, what’s life like for Bill Brown these days?

Brown: It’s very good. It involves a variety of things, which is what I had hoped for. You don’t know at first what’s going to come along, what’s out there, but it’s been perfect. It’s more the enjoyment of a fan when I come to a game usually. I don’t have too many duties. I was up in a suite for an hour or so the other night. Sometimes I give little tours around the place. 

I speak to groups. It’s a variety of things. I write an article for the game day magazine once a month, that kind of thing. I filled in on a few games. And I’ve gone to Corpus and done a game and gone to Round Rock and done a game. More of a variety of things with still some time for golf or a vacation here and there. So, it’s a really nice variety of life right now and it’s fun.

Because you’re around the team so much and around the ballpark, are there ever any moments where you miss broadcasting?

Brown: I think a broadcaster is always going to miss that walk-off hit, that home run, that clincher. But to be fair about it, let’s review everything that would have gone into that day in preparation and in maybe packing for a road trip, that kind of thing. That’s the part that I don’t miss. I miss, yes, the opportunity to call an exciting play, sure. But most of what I do does not involve much preparation — it’s just showing up — so it’s been relaxing a lot more.

You were such a meticulous preparer, so that’s got to be a lot of time that you now have to do other things. How do you fill that void?

Brown: Well, actually, I guess it’s ingrained, so I can’t get it out of me at this point. I still keep notes every morning on the games involving the Astros. I keep a little notebook like I always did on each game, and I keep a pitcher’s sheet. Every time Verlander pitches, the home starts are in red ink and the road starts are in colored ink. So, I keep number of pitches thrown, the strikes, all this stuff, home runs allowed, ERA after each game, little notes here and there. And why do I do that? Part of it is just being a fan and part of it is it’s what I’ve always done. And the other part of it is I did do a few games, so I needed that background when I was preparing for those games. And then Reid Ryan wanted me to be on the ready in case I’m needed if somebody’s sick or whatever. So, that’s part of it, too.

So you have notes for every single game?

Brown: Yeah, I do. I’m a nerd. I’ve got a page for each pitcher and I’ve got all of his appearances and that kind of thing. But the other thing is I write a little bit each day. It might be like two or three paragraphs is all. I don’t know. It’s just something to keep mentally sharp. And we’re talking about a total of an hour and a half a day or something max. But since I was a kid I liked to look at box scores, I liked to watch highlight shows. So that hasn’t really changed all that much. The difference being if I want to go play golf then I’ll put that aside and not do that. (Laughs.) And that’s pretty nice.

Has your golf game improved since retirement?

Brown: No. My golf game stinks. I am the worst golfer on the face of the earth. 

I doubt that strongly. At the time you retired, you sounded pretty sure it was the right time for you. With two more years’ perspective, how do you look back on that?

Brown: Oh, I think it definitely was the thing to do at the time. People kid me about, ‘Why in the world would you walk away from a world championship team?’ I say, ‘I was hoping. I didn’t know, but I thought yeah, they’ve got some really good years coming up here, I think.’ But I thought that at that point it would be nice to get the people in place on TV who were going to go through the next hopefully many years and get them established for the viewers. And they would have good teams. And it helps you to get established if the games you’re calling are winning games. You become a better broadcaster, I’m saying sarcastically, when the team is winning. And it actually has worked out that way, I think. Those guys have become very popular. I think they’re well accepted. I think it’s been ideal the way it’s worked out. Everybody’s happy.

Often when you’re here at the ballpark you’re spotted with a camera and you’ve been known to venture into the photo well. What compelled you to try your hand at photography and how’s that been going?

Bill-Brown-2.jpg
Brown snaps a photograph during Jeff Bagwell’s Hall of Fame induction weekend in July 2017 in Cooperstown, N.Y.

Brown: It was kind of becoming my hobby (in), I guess, 2016 was about the time, my last year of doing games. I could see that I didn’t know anything about photography. So, I would talk to some of the professionals and they would mention a few things and I had no idea what they were talking about. But it really created a fascination with what they do. And then once I started trying it, I realized how talented they are and how knowledgeable they are and how many things they know about the way a camera operates, about the sport of baseball, about how to frame, to be in focus. I was just blown away by how good they are at their craft. And it’s been about as frustrating as golf trying to pick it up. I’ve got so much out of focus stuff, and it’s ridiculous. But it’s one of these, ‘I’ll never be good at this but I’m going to keep trying’ passions. (Laughs.)

When you reflect on your 29 seasons calling Astros baseball, what do you consider your favorite call?

Brown: Well the one that most people don’t even know about was Barry Bonds’s 70th home run here in ’01. The Ken Burns series used it. I saw it once. We were on the road somewhere when that series came out and we had had a night game and I was just about to fall asleep and it was about midnight or one in the morning and that call came on. I woke up and I looked at the show and I wondered, ‘Why in the world are they using my call? Duane Kuiper had to have a call that was 10 times better than my call.’ 

But that was a nice compliment. But I guarantee you there’s not one person who remembers that call except me.

I just tried to incorporate what a historic moment it was. Beyond that, I can’t remember exactly what I said. But the fact that Ken Burns’ producer, whoever he was, would use it, I felt pretty complimented by that.

People ask about calls, and the fact that we don’t do postseason on TV cuts us out of a lot of the biggest moments. Last year, like during the World Series, I promise you Todd Kalas was more frustrated than I was because he had done games all year long. This was the way I felt in ’04 and ’05. Great postseason games and you’re not working but you’ve been working all season long. That was probably the most difficult emotion to handle. ‘Well, you know, this is what I would love to be doing tonight but it’s not going to happen.’ And you know it’s not going to happen, but it doesn’t make it any easier. 

The radio guys, they plow on through the World Series and everything. So, for them it’s a totally different feeling. They get to the end of the World Series, it’s one of the great World Series of all time, they’ve had a number of calls and comments and they’re going to be preserved that way, as they should be, in the team’s history. TV guys have none of those memories. You don’t want anybody to feel sorry for you, but it’s just, ‘Wow, I wish I could’ve had this.’ So, I promise you that by last year I was more of a fan and I was enjoying it more as a fan. But for Todd, if I had been in Todd’s shoes, I would’ve thought, ‘Oh, man, this is killing me that I’m not doing this game.’ (Laughs.)

Well, if we limit the sample to 29 regular seasons of Astros calls, is there any one that comes to mind?

Brown: I think the one that probably most people would say would be Biggio’s 3,000th hit. 

Kind of my favorite game was the last regular season game in the Dome in ’99 when they had to win to get in the playoffs. There was a big celebration planned after the game because it could have been the last game in the Dome had they not made the playoffs. They had brought all of the Bob Aspromontes of the world back into the Dome to celebrate the history of the team and the final game of the Dome in the regular season. So they were all there, on hand, for the game, and if it had been a loss it would’ve been a real downer. They had Willie Nelson there ready to sing, ‘Turn out the lights, the party’s over.’ All of this confetti is coming down from the ceiling of the Dome. It was just a really memorable day.

AP_99100301275.jpg
Fans cheer during the opening ceremonies of the final regular-season game in the Astrodome Sunday, Oct. 3, 1999, in Houston. | AP Photo/Donna Carson)

And then I think the final games of the regular season in ’04 and ’05 here when they had to win to get in as a wild card team, there was a lot of drama there. The ’05 game was really different because Brandon Backe was an emergency starter for Roger Clemens, who had been sick all night the night before. So we get to the ballpark and everybody’s expecting Clemens. ‘Clemens is not pitching?’ ‘No. It’s Backe. We told him in the training room about three or four hours before the game he was starting.’ And he went out and pitched a whale of a game.

So, those were really memorable. Was there any one call in those games? No, not that I recall.

Does your last broadcast have any special place in your memory bank?

Brown: The broadcast itself, no. It was a one-sided game. But what happened that day, yes. A.J. [Hinch] sent word to me that he wanted me to come into his office and so I went in and sat. He said, ‘You’re not going to like this. I know how you are. But here’s a bottle of wine and it’s a Red Stitch label wine. Dave Roberts started this winery in California and it’s really, really good wine. So, save it for a special occasion, and this is a memento.’ Well, it’s still at home. It hasn’t been opened. But we have our 50th wedding anniversary coming up next June. So, that’s going to be a special occasion.

And then he said, ‘You’re really not going to like this.’ But he took me out into the clubhouse and all of the players were gathered around, and he made a little speech about what I had done for the team and Altuve brought me his bat. It was autographed by the whole team. You don’t forget that. The game itself? Yeah, I pretty much forgot it. (Laughs.)

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ckhorn

ckhorn 226

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Posted
1 hour ago, tx 3 putt said:

Straw isn’t making the playoff roster 

 

I’m not sure I’m taking LMJ over James 

I think they both make it, if LMJ is ready. Not looking good for Peacock, McHugh and Rondon right now. I would take Peacock right now over the other two. He proved he could handle it last year. Don't think McHugh did much, plus McHugh and Rondon have been crap recently. Its who is going to step up over the next two weeks. 

Nice turnaround from Harris. We need another guy other than Sipp and Presley to get LHH out.

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henrygandorf

henrygandorf 29225

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Posted

so here's the question - what is the plan for dk in the alds?

right now he's either sp3 or sp4 but i don't feel comfortable with him coming out of the bullpen (a la mccullers/morty 2017).  that said, i don't feel comfortable with him pitching g3 or 4 in cleveland either.  so here's my crazy plan...

pitch him in game 1, at home, against kluber.  see if he can get you 5 strong innings, then hand it over to lmj, morty, mchugh, james - whatever.

then throw verlander in g2, hopefully going for a 2-0 lead, otherwise, aiming to tie it up.

throw cole in g3 on the road, who i trust a lot more to be nasty in a hostile environment.

then, you throw morty in g4 (skip dk on the 2nd round).

come back with jv in g5 at home (if necessary).  if we somehow win the series before g5, verlander is rested and ready for g1 of the alcs.

 

the logical/probable scenario is to go jv-cole-dk, then i guess you wait and see about g4 (whether we go 3 or 4 man in the alds is up for debate).  i would almost rather dk not be on the playoff roster than go in g3 on the road against clevinger or bauer.

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UTexasFight

UTexasFight 9817

Posted
Posted
so here's the question - what is the plan for dk in the alds?
right now he's either sp3 or sp4 but i don't feel comfortable with him coming out of the bullpen (a la mccullers/morty 2017).  that said, i don't feel comfortable with him pitching g3 or 4 in cleveland either.  so here's my crazy plan...
pitch him in game 1, at home, against kluber.  see if he can get you 5 strong innings, then hand it over to lmj, morty, mchugh, james - whatever.
then throw verlander in g2, hopefully going for a 2-0 lead, otherwise, aiming to tie it up.
throw cole in g3 on the road, who i trust a lot more to be nasty in a hostile environment.
then, you throw morty in g4 (skip dk on the 2nd round).
come back with jv in g5 at home (if necessary).  if we somehow win the series before g5, verlander is rested and ready for g1 of the alcs.
 
the logical/probable scenario is to go jv-cole-dk, then i guess you wait and see about g4 (whether we go 3 or 4 man in the alds is up for debate).  i would almost rather dk not be on the playoff roster than go in g3 on the road against clevinger or bauer.

Don’t underestimate the possibility that Hinch will want to split up JV and Cole.
I absolutely trust DK on the road, but wouldn’t be shocked if Hinch rolled with him in game 2 to give the Indians more of a different look less than 24 hours after seeing JV.
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